


everyone feels like a liar these days (don't know how not to feel that way)

by cold_nights_summer_days



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angry Peter Parker, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Ned Leeds, Betrayal, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Whump, F/M, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Rated teen and up for language, Whump, background Morgan Stark, background Nick Fury - Freeform, background Pepper Potts - Freeform, david the spider, i know those don't sound related but trust me they are, lying, peter's life is kind of a shit show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22011631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cold_nights_summer_days/pseuds/cold_nights_summer_days
Summary: UPDATE: If you are reading this fic on any platform other than the Archive, such as any of the app store/google play apps that are only accesible behind a paywall, this work is available for free on archiveofourown.com.Written for the 2019 Irondad Fic Exchange for CinnamonrollStark. Prompt: Tony comes back to life after the Snap and this is their reunion.----Then, as Peter dodged bullets and destroyed drones, a flash of red and gold caught his eye. Attention elsewhere, he slammed into a drone and was sent sprawling to the ground. His mind raced a mile a minute.It’s not real, Peter. It’s not real. It’s not real. You know what Beck is capable of, he’s only trying to distract you.He could only watch, stunned, as he saw his childhood hero blasting drones out of the sky. Beneath his mask tears began to fall as he told himself it wasn’t real. How could it be?
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 16
Kudos: 192
Collections: Irondad Fic Exchange 2019





	everyone feels like a liar these days (don't know how not to feel that way)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CinnamonrollStark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnamonrollStark/gifts).



> Hi! This is my second piece for the 2019 Irondad Fic Exchange, written for cinnamonrollstark! I took some liberties with the chosen prompt (Tony comes back to life years after the Snap), but I hope you still like it. Beware, lots of emotional whump ahead!
> 
> I'd like to give a special thank you to my wonderful beta, Misty, because I'm not sure where this fic would be without her. Sorry for making you read it a hundred times, but I had to make sure it was perfect ;) The title is from the song If You Need Me by Julia Michaels. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

Peter didn’t know what to do. There were too many of them, too many drones. How was he supposed to destroy them all? There were thousands, hundreds of thousands, and he was one teenager with spider powers. Stickiness and super hearing weren’t extremely helpful when one was flying through the air. Why on earth had he believed he could take care of this by himself?

Oh, right. He didn’t. Fury did. And where was Fury now? Cozy up in his tower watching the whole event unfold from his office window. Peter wished he had never agreed to go with him in Venice. He wished he could have just enjoyed his school trip and asked MJ out at the top of the Eifel Tower. God, life seemed so much simpler a year ago. So much simpler before Thanos and the Snap and . . . and . . . Tony’s death.

Even now the thought was more painful than Peter could have imagined. Peter knew that Happy hadn’t meant to, but hearing his words made him feel so much worse. _“He wouldn’t have done what he did if he didn’t know that you would be here after he was gone._ ” Tony’s death had never really gotten easier, not when he saw reminders around him all day every day, but that statement sent Peter reeling even further backward. And then there was the glasses. Tony had trusted him, and he gave them to Beck.

Then, as Peter dodged bullets and destroyed drones, a flash of red and gold caught his eye. Attention elsewhere, he slammed into a drone and was sent sprawling to the ground. His mind raced a mile a minute.

_It’s not real, Peter. It’s not real. It’s not real. You know what Beck is capable of, he’s only trying to distract you._

He could only watch, stunned, as he saw his childhood hero blasting drones out of the sky. Beneath his mask tears began to fall as he told himself it wasn’t real. How could it be? He watched the light leave Tony’s eyes, felt his heart stop under his palm. Beck had used what Peter had told him to stop him, to torture him. It was sick.

"Stop messing with me, Beck!” He screamed, using the fresh anger and adrenaline pulsing through his veins to fight. He shot a web at the nearest drone and yanked it out of the sky as forcefully as he could, an explosion sending asphalt and concrete flying. As soon as his bravado had appeared it disappeared. His comms, always silent, came to life.

“Slow down, kid. I’ll handle the rest of this. Happy is waiting for you a few blocks away, okay?” Came Tony’s voice. Peter shook his head.

“I know he’s not real! I know you’re just trying to mess with me!” Peter shouted. He tried to have Karen shut off his comms, but she told him that he didn’t have access to that feature. Puzzled, Peter wondered if Beck had hacked his entire system instead of just the comm channel.

“What do you mean? Peter, I’m not trying to mess with you.”

“Yes, you are. Tony is dead. He’s _dead_. I know he isn’t here right now.”

“Kid—just go to Happy and wait for me. He’ll explain everything.”

“I’m not letting you win!”

“Just listen to me for once in your life, Peter. I swear it will all make sense later—”

“Why should I believe you?” Peter asked, voice weak. He didn’t want Beck to know how much he was affecting him, but he couldn’t keep the desperation and hope out of his words. His heart ached with the idea of this all being real.

“Because I know that your favourite song is Pompeii by Bastille because you love the vocals and that May hates it because of how much you play it in the car. I know that you say you love Star Wars because it’s Ned’s favourite, but you really prefer Star Trek. I know that you used to hide your Spider-Man onesie in the ceiling so May wouldn’t find it—”

“Okay, okay!” Peter said, tears flowing hot and heavy under the mask. “I believe you.”

“Go to Happy, he’ll explain everything, and I’ll be there soon.”

Peter nodded even though Tony couldn’t see him and took off in the direction Karen told him to go. She must have gotten the directions from FRIDAY. After a few blocks of swinging through the deserted London streets he found Happy, along with MJ, Ned, Betty, and Flash. Betty and Flash looked confused at Peter’s arrival, but he couldn’t have cared less.

Peter ripped the mask off as soon as his feet touched the ground. Not long after he was on all fours and breathing heavily. What the hell? What the actual hell? Tony was alive?

Happy came rushing over and lifted Peter into a sitting position. He was well trained in the art of Peter’s panic attacks, having become accustomed to them over the past year. He assured Peter that he was alright and everything was going to be fine, while rubbing reassuring circles on his back. Ned was soon at his side as well, though MJ hung back awkwardly with Flash and Betty.

Several minutes later after Peter had (relatively) calmed down and drank some water, he asked Happy to kindly explain what the fuck was going on. Happy took a deep breath and shot a nervous glance to the rest of the teenagers.

“Cat’s already out of the bag, Happy. Just tell me,” He said tiredly. With no more adrenaline coursing through his veins a nap sounded like a very pleasant idea.

Happy explained the situation slowly, as one might do to a young child. Peter, who usually hated being talked down to, found that he didn’t mind. One could even say he appreciated the simple words even though they did not fit the situation. Tony had actually died on the battlefield, that much was true, but everything else Peter knew was a lie. From there the remains of SHIELD had taken his body back to one of their top-secret facilities (hence the lakeside funeral) and executed something called Project Tahiti. Project Tahiti was a top-secret program developed to bring back an Avenger or other important SHIELD member.

“So, what you’re telling me is that Tony _died_ and then _was brought back to life_?” Peter asked. Happy nodded his head with a sigh. “Who else knows?”

“Pepper and Morgan, the remaining Avengers, Rhodey, and myself.”

“And he never told me?” Peter felt a sharp pain in his chest, almost like he’d been stabbed. _Was I not important enough to tell? Did Happy even mean what he said on the plane?”_

Peter was pulled from his stupor by the loud clank of the Iron Man suit landing behind them. He stood up quick enough to send his head spinning, but that didn’t matter. He barely waited for Tony to step out of the suit before the words came.

“How could you not tell me?” He shouted. Betrayal stung deep in his bones, more painful than any injury he had acquired in the past week. Tony’s eyes held emotions Peter couldn’t even begin to process at that moment, but Peter barreled forwards. “I mourned you! I cried for you!”

“Peter, listen—"

“I went to your funeral! I saw you die! I heard your heart stop beating!” Peter’s breathing was erratic, breaths coming in short bursts between his words. It had been a year since that god-awful day on that god-forsaken battlefield.

“Someone was supposed to tell you—”

“What do you mean?”

“There was a list. I gave Fury a list of people that he was supposed to tell. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that he didn’t tell you.” Tony looked sincere, but Peter didn’t want to hear another word. He picked his mask up from the ground and pulled it on roughly before swinging away.

The comfort he had so wished for the past year stood three feet away from him and here he was, running away.

Rain fell softly that day, sending ripples throughout the lake and filling the air with the sweet smell of wet earth as the universe wept for the loss of her best defender. Peter watched the summer birds flying wide circles above him and wondered if they knew the true weight of this day.

If Peter listened hard enough, he could hear the distant calls of bullfrogs from across the lake and quiet rustling of the leaves. It was worse, somehow, to know the world went on when your own was standing still.

Peter glanced towards the tree line as Pepper lowered the wreath into the water, unable to watch the final piece of his mentor drift away from him to a place he couldn’t reach. He caught the orange flash of a robin’s wing as he gathered sticks for a nest and the light whistle, he gave whilst working. Another robin, this one sitting on the porch railing, whistled back.

Will they remember him in a hundred years? In a thousand? And do the habitants of other planets know the true cost of their loved ones lost and found? Will they care, in the end, of the price of being able to hold them again?

Peter stood still even as the crowd dispersed, lost in thoughts of another kind. He wondered what the world had thought. He wondered if Mother Nature had minded their absence. Maybe not, he supposed, maybe she didn’t even know.

Tomorrow morning the trees would rustle in the wind and flowers would grow, forgetful of today’s sorrow. Tomorrow morning the birds would sing their beautiful song, none the wiser of their loss. Tomorrow morning the sun would rise on a universe unaware of Tony Stark’s sacrifice, unaware of the true price of their salvation.

The plane ride home could not have been more awkward if Peter had tried to make it that way. He sat in a row with MJ and Ned, all of them reeling from the recent revelation. Flash kept shooting the trio odd glances and Peter was worried he might stand up any second and announce Peter’s secret identity to all the passengers.

“I shouldn’t have been so stupid earlier,” Peter sighed, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes. “Now Flash is going to tell everyone and make my life a hundred—no, five hundred—times harder.” His only escape was Spider-Man and soon he wouldn’t even get to have that.

“No, he won’t,” MJ said firmly. “He wouldn’t even dare.”

“And why is that? It’s not like I can blackmail him into keeping it a secret.”

“Mr. Stark can.” Ned chimed in. Peter knew Ned was only trying to reassure him, but the name sent Peter over the edge of the precipice he had barely been holding onto in the first place.

“Don’t say his fucking name, okay? I don’t need his help.” Peter stood abruptly and pushed his way to the aisle. He nearly tripped on Ned’s feet but managed to make it to the bathroom and slam the door shut before anger gripped him like a vise. He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the cold tile of the tiny airplane bathroom. There wasn’t enough room to stretch his legs, so he pulled his knees up to his chest and leaned his head against the wall. Peter took several deep breaths to calm himself down.

His anger faded slowly until it became nothing more than a dull ache. Peter checked his watch (the one Tony had given him two—seven?—years ago) and saw that he had been in the bathroom for nearly twenty minutes. He knew he had to go back to his seat soon, for the descent at the very least, but that was the last thing he wanted to do. He didn’t want to see Flash’s stupid glances or listen to Ned’s empty reassurances.

When he finally did go back to his seat, though, he was met with neither of these things. Flash appeared to be engrossed in some movie and Ned was playing on his computer. Peter sent a silent thank you to the universe. He would apologize to them later, of course, but he took the opportunity to try and rest. He would need it later when he finally tried to sort out his thoughts.

The plane finally landed around one am. May was waiting for Peter at the gate with a sad smile. Peter assumed she would know by now what had happened between the news (who hadn’t stopped reporting on it since that morning) and Happy (who Peter was sure called her as soon as he was gone). May greeted him with a comforting hug. 

“Ready to get your luggage?” She asked eventually, pulling away. Peter shook his head.

“Don’t have any. It got blown up, remember?”

“Oh, right,” May nodded. Peter, oddly, wanted to laugh. The whole situation just seemed so stupidly funny to him all of a sudden. Blown up luggage should be the least of his worries. He almost died this week. His friends almost died this week. His whole life got turned upside down (again) this week.

“What are you laughing about, Peter?” May asked, confused. Peter just stood there laughing and drawing the attention of strangers.

“My life is such a fucking joke, May. My whole goddamn life is a joke,” Peter said. May sighed and started leading him to the car. She couldn’t say she disagreed. Getting bit by a radioactive spider, meeting your childhood hero, fighting aliens, finding out your mentor wasn’t actually dead, and almost destroying Europe sounded like something straight out of a comic book.

“How about we go home, okay? You can sleep, have breakfast, and then we’ll talk about all of this. Everything will be fine.”

Peter just kept laughing.

Later that morning Peter heard May calling Happy. He tried to tune out most of their conversation, unwilling to listen to lovey-dovey comments coming from his aunt. Super hearing turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing when it came to living in an apartment. Especially when your neighbors were two young newlyweds. Peter hoped he never ran into them in the hallway, or god forbid, the elevator.

Twenty minutes after the call ended Happy was knocking at the front door and Peter knew he would have to get out of bed. Instead of waiting for May to come get him, he pulled the covers off and grabbed a hoodie before heading to the kitchen. May liked the apartment colder than he did, but Peter wasn’t going to complain. At this point it was a miracle they even had an apartment to keep cold.

Peter could feel the pair of them staring at him the second he stepped out of the hallway. He pretended not to notice as he grabbed a bowl from the cabinet and a box of Lucky Charms from the top of the fridge. The tension in the room was palpable. Peter ignored May and Happy for another five minutes while he ate, wishing he could ignore the situation all together. How, exactly, did one deal with their dead mentor/father-figure coming back to life? Was that the sort of thing you could go to counseling for?

“So, Peter, about yesterday,” Happy started awkwardly, glancing towards May. She nodded and he kept going. “You did an amazing job handling Mysterio. There are a few things we need to discuss.”

_That’s an understatement._

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Peter asked calmly, the very opposite of the emotions swirling in his mind. He knew that being hysterical wasn’t going to get him anywhere. “Tony said there was a list.”

Happy nodded. “He gave Fury a list as soon as he woke up of people who were supposed to be told.”

“So why did no one tell me?”

“Because we didn’t think you could handle it.” Happy answered truthfully. After everything else that had happened, he hadn’t had it in him to lie to the poor kid.

“What do you mean?”

“The remaining Avengers, Fury, me and Ma—”

“They didn’t think that you would be able to act like Tony was gone if you knew that he wasn’t.” May said quickly, shooting Happy a pointed glance. Peter didn’t miss May’s quick intervention. Were they hiding something else from him, too?

Oh. _Oh._

“May,” Anger quickly took over despite Peter’s efforts to keep it hidden. The spoon he had been holding was like putty in his hands. “Did you know?”

“Sweetie—”

“Did you know?”

“—it’s complicated—”

“I don’t care!” Peter yelled. “Did you know?”

“Yes, but you have to understand something, Peter. We didn’t—”

“—think I could handle it, yeah I got that part. That’s low, May, really fucking low. All those times you woke me up from nightmares and caught me crying and you never told me.”

Peter’s chair flung backwards when he shot up and went to his bedroom. He needed to be somewhere else before he did something he regretted. He pulled his backpack out of the closet and roughly filled it with clothes and his phone before pulling on his (severely damaged) suit. He didn’t bother shouting a goodbye before exiting through the window. They would realize he was gone soon enough on their own.

Tony watched the tv half-heartedly. Every channel was stuck on one thing: him. He watched looped video after looped video of himself blowing up Mysterio’s drones. He had to admit, he did look pretty cool doing it, but that didn’t make up for the hundreds of calls from Nick Fury blowing up his phone. The man clearly didn’t know how to take a hint. Sometime in between the twentieth and twenty-fifth call, a plan hatched in Tony’s mind. On the twenty-seventh call he answered.

“Nick Fury, you son of a goddamn bitch.” Tony said coldly. Pepper glared at him from the kitchen where her and Morgan were making lunch. Tony shrugged his shoulders. “You didn’t fucking tell him?”

_“Tell who what?”_

“Don’t play coy with me, asshole. You didn’t tell Peter I’m alive.”

_“We didn’t think he could pull it off.”_

“You have no fucking clue what he can pull off and thanks to you my kid ran away from me in London and refuses to talk to me.”

_“Stark, we have more pressing issues—”_

“The fuck we do.” Tony said finally, hanging up the call and tossing his phone to the other side of the couch. Pepper rolled her eyes.

“This is why our daughter says things like ‘shit’.” She said. Morgan giggled innocently. Tony laughed despite the overwhelming stress he felt. Peter clearly wanted space, and as much as it would hurt, Tony knew he had to give it to him. Nobody could push Peter into doing something he didn’t want to. Peter would come to him when he was ready, and when he did, Tony would welcome him with open arms.

Peter had been on a normal patrol—as if anything could be considered normal anymore—when it happened. He had stopped in Times Square when he saw Quentin Beck’s face light up every screen, dumbstruck. Wasn’t he dead? Or in some high security prison somewhere at least? Peter perched on the nearest lamppost to watch the video.

The film was shaky and loud, explosions and sirens filling the background. Beck was wearing his illusion suit, helmet cracked, and fabric torn. If Peter listened close enough, he could make out the faint blast of Tony’s repulsor in the background as he joined the battle. Anger filled Peter’s mind at the memory. A month later and he still couldn’t believe they hadn’t told him. Especially May. How could she keep that a secret as she comforted him about nightmares of Tony’s death? Through the panic attacks that often accompanied the reminder that he was gone?

 _“I wish there was something I could do, honey,_ ” She’d say, carding her fingers through Peter’s messy curls. You could have told me, Peter thought. _You could have told me he was alive instead of letting me think that my curse had finally caught up to him._

Peter’s anger only grew when Beck began speaking, looking around anxiously.

“I don’t have much time left.” He said hurriedly. As much as Peter wanted to leave, he was curious as to what Beck was going to say. When he did finally call Nick Fury for a debrief, nothing was mentioned about a video.

“Tony Stark isn’t dead and—” Beck was cut off by a particularly loud blast that rocked the bridge he was hiding out in. “I know Spider-Man’s identity.”

Peter’s heart started to race as the New York passerby glanced at him. The very last thing he needed right now was another shit show. Of course, that’s when Beck announced his name, accompanied with a school photo from sophomore year. He looked slightly younger, but not different enough to not be recognizable now.

Peter felt everyone’s attention shift to him. He glanced around, mind going a million miles a minute. _What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck._ Peter shot a web to the nearest building and took off. It didn’t matter what direction. He couldn’t go back to Ned’s now. People would follow him there. He would be putting Ned and his family in danger.

And what about school in the fall? What about ever being able to leave the house again? There was only two people he could think to call, and he didn’t want to speak to either of them. Of course, he could try to call Nick Fury, but what would he do? He would probably use this as another chance to get Peter to work with SHIELD, which Peter didn’t want.

Five minutes later Karen announced that Peter had a phone call from Ned. He almost didn’t answer, but thought better of it at the last second.

 _“Where are you?_ ” Ned asked worriedly. Peter tried to look for a landmark, but this area didn’t look familiar to him. Maybe his brain was just too muddled right now to figure out where he was.

“I don’t know. Somewhere.”

_“As opposed to nowhere?”_

“Star-Lord told me about a place like that once, but I think its spelled with a K.”

_“Okay, we can talk about how incredibly awesome that is later. Right now we have bigger things to worry about.”_

“That’s the understatement of the year.”

_“Yeah, it is. But you need to get back here, dude. Mom is worried about you, and so am I.”_

“I can’t go back there, Ned. I don’t want to put you guys in danger. What if someone follows me?”

_“Well first off, you’re a superhero, so I’m not too worried. But if that doesn’t work out my dad keeps a gun somewhere. I’m pretty sure, at least. I guess I don’t know because I’ve never seen it, but he says he does and why would he lie about that—”_

“Okay, I get it. But if something happens—”

_“Then we’ll deal with it. Just come back, okay? Then we can sit down and actually talk about this.”_

“Okay,” Peter sighed. “I’m on my way back.”

Karen hung up the phone and plotted a course home for Peter. She was worried he might get lost otherwise.

“Should I contact Tony Stark?” She asked. Peter had told her not to bring him up last month (“Spider-Man is the only escape I have from all this anymore, Karen, don’t bring him up), but he had never actually programmed her not to do it.

Peter debated her question. Tony would know what to do about this, for sure, but Peter wasn’t ready to see him.

“No.” He said finally. He reached Ned’s bedroom window two minutes later, opening it and slipping in quickly. He found his best friend and his family sitting at the dining room table.

Boy, he was in for a rough night. A _very_ rough night.

A very rough night turned into a very rough week. Peter stayed in the apartment until he couldn’t stand it anymore (which with his ADHD and overactive spider energy, was only two days). On the third day he found an old baseball hat in Ned’s closet and borrowed his dad’s sunglasses, hoping to avoid any kind of unwanted attention. But it turns out that the more you don’t want attention, the more you seem to attract it.

Five minutes after leaving the apartment building Peter dropped his phone facedown on the concrete (normally that wouldn’t happen, but his spider-sense had been going batshit crazy since what will be henceforth referred to as The Incident). He sighed at his luck and bent down to pick it up, the over-large sunglasses slipping right off. Peter scrambled to pick them up, but the damage was already done. Somebody had seen him.

“Peter Parker?” The man who spotted him said. Peter tried to shake his head no and stammered out a response.

“No, no—”

“Hey! It’s Spider-Man!” Another person shouted. All eyes were turned to Peter as he tried to make excuses, tried to convince them that he wasn’t who they thought he was. In the end, he ended up running back to the apartment as fast as he could while people took pictures and tried to ask questions. If just walking down the street was a nightmare, he didn’t want to know what kind of hell school in the fall would be.

Peter suspected that Flash would be even worse than before, if that was possible. Now that he knew the kid he had bullied for years was Spider-Man he would try to be friends with him. Everyone at school was probably going to try and be friends with him, save for the ones who thought enhanced individuals were a disease and not to be interacted with.

Maybe it was incredibly twisted, but it was sort of comforting that not everybody would want to talk to him. Peter was already used to people hating him (although he could never figure out why, because he never bothered anyone), so a few more wouldn’t matter.

Somehow Peter found himself back not at Ned’s apartment, but May’s. He stared at the seven story building wistfully, every muscle in his tired body aching to step through the front door. May couldn’t solve all this, try as she might, but she knew how to comfort Peter. She would make hot chocolate with exactly four marshmallows, no more, no less, and put on some old movie they’d seen a million times while they talked. 

No matter how much Peter’s feet wanted to carry him up the stairs and into the apartment, he couldn’t make them. Instead they took him back down the familiar path to Ned’s apartment, each footstep a pang in his heart. It had been over a month since he’d seen or spoken to her last. Would she even want to see him after the stunt he pulled?

Deep down Peter knew the answer was yes, but he wasn’t quite ready to face her yet. He could still barely process the fact that his dad mentor wasn’t truly dead and that everyone had thought him incapable of handling the truth and keeping the secret. It took time to face things like that when someone didn’t have to worry about much else, let alone dealing with an identity reveal and Peter’s whole life being turned upside down (again).

 _Maybe tomorrow,_ Peter thought, _I’ll be ready._

After his last shit show of an outing, Peter decided to stay in indefinitely. He drove Ned’s family crazy by constantly doing pushups at every turn and using the doorways to practice his pull-ups. None of them mentioned his crazy behavior for worry of sending Peter into an even more mentally precarious state. Ned walked in on him watching a nature documentary about spiders once at three in the morning and when one of the spiders got eaten by a bird, he started crying. Not normal, sniffle crying, but full on sobs.

 _“How could you?_ ” Peter said to the bird, unaware of Ned’s position in the doorway behind him. Ned wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry or just disappear like nothing had happened. In the end he had gone with the third option, but his escape was cut short when Peter turned around to search for a box of tissues. Peter stared at him owlishly for a moment before fresh tears began to fall.

 _“How could the—the bird do that, Ned?”_ He’d asked. Ned sighed. He’d done some weird shit to help Peter out before, but this was a whole new level.

 _“It was just the spider’s time, Peter. That’s nature. The circle of life._ ” Ned had answered. This was not the correct answer, however, and made Peter cry harder.

_“But David had so much to live for.”_

_“David?”_

_“The spider, Ned! His name was David and he had a family! Mr. Nature Guy said it himself!”_

_“Peter, I think its time for you to go to bed.”_

_“I’m not tired.”_ Peter protested, barely holding back a yawn. Somehow Ned managed to wrestle him into bed and Peter fell asleep before his head hit the pillow. Ned hadn’t mentioned that incident to his parents, but they were probably woken up by Peter’s not-so-silent breakdown.

In short, Peter was a mess. Ned understood why Peter didn’t want to talk to his family, but he could tell it was really wearing on him. Four days after what will be referred to as the David Incident, Ned tried to discuss the situation with him. It was late, probably sometime after eleven, and Ned’s parents had already gone to sleep. The only reason the pair were awake was because they were finishing up a movie.

“It’s been over a month.” Ned started casually. He glanced sideways at his best friend to see his reaction, but Peter’s expression remained neutral. “Since the thing with Mr. Stark.”

Mr. Stark had told Ned multiple times to call him Tony, but it felt weird to call his childhood hero by his first name. Peter had had the same issue at first.

“I think you should talk to him.” Ned continued.

“Why? He hasn’t tried to talk to me.”

“He knows you wouldn’t pick up the phone. Everyone knows how stubborn you are. ”

“I’m not being stubborn—”

“He calls me. And my parents. May does too, to make sure that you’re okay and stuff. They’re worried about you. They were only trying to give you space because that’s what you wanted.”

Peter’s mouth hung open, whatever argument he had prepared gone.

“It was a really shit thing to do, alright, not telling you that Mr. Stark was still alive. But now that you know he is alive, why are you wasting time by avoiding him? I don’t know about you, but if I thought my dad was dead and then it turned out he wasn’t, I would talk to him. Mr. Stark didn’t know that nobody told you because he was stuck in some shield facility somewhere. You can be mad at May and Happy and Pepper all you want, I totally would be too, but Mr. Stark wasn’t trying to hide anything from you. He might be Iron Man, but sometimes even he can’t control who’s pulling the strings.”

“Ned,” Peter said, eyebrows drawn together in thought. “I have to go.”

New York City was never quiet, but it seemed to be as Peter walked through the residential streets of Queens. His thoughts were much louder than anything else around him at the moment. He’d had no idea that May and Tony called to check on him. He was still mad at May, Happy, and Pepper, but those bridges would be slow to repair. He loved them still, of course, but it was hard to think of them without being angry. They didn’t trust him. They hadn’t believed in him. And it hurt.

But, hopefully, he could fix the mess he’d made with Tony. At the very least he could try.

Tony was asleep when his phone rang. Pepper shifted beside him and mumbled something that Tony couldn’t quite catch, though he suspected it was something along the lines of, “What is it?”. Tony didn’t answer, fumbling around for his phone on the nightstand. The screen practically blinded him before FRIDAY adjusted the brightness. When he could see again the name Peter Parker flashed across the screen.

“It’s Peter,” Tony said, suddenly wide awake. It had been a month and a half since the pair had spoken. Peter had wanted space and Tony wasn’t going to begrudge him that, no matter how much it hurt. Yelling at Nick Fury had made him feel better, but only temporarily. 

“What?” Pepper asked.

“It’s Peter,” Tony repeated. The excitement at the call quickly turned to dread as he realized the time. Was Peter in trouble? Before his mind could fall further down the rabbit hole, Tony pressed the answer button.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Tony asked anxiously, sitting up. A thousand possibilities, each more terrible than the last, played out in his mind in the moments it took Peter to answer.

 _“Yeah I’m—I’m fine._ ” Peter answered. Tony released the breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding. _Thank god. “I was just wondering if, um, if I could come over?”_

“Yes, yes. Of course, Peter, you can always come over. Do you need me to pick you up?”

 _“Yeah. I’m a few blocks away from Ned’s apartment in Queens—_ ” Peter was cut off by someone shouting in the background. The only words Tony heard were _“look”, “Spider-man”, and “over”._

“Is everything okay over there, Peter?”

_“Come on guys, we can work this out. There’s no need for anyone to get shot tonight—”_

“Peter?”

Tony heard three things: a gunshot, a scream, and the sound of someone hitting concrete. He immediately jumped out of bed and ran downstairs. Barely a minute later Tony was suited up and flying towards New York City. FRIDAY located Peter using his phone.

“Hang in there, kid. I’m on my way and then Dr. Cho will get you all fixed up, okay? Just hang in there. Can you do that for me?”

Some by miracle Peter answered. _“They got away.”_

“I’m not worried about that right now, Peter. I’m worried about you. You gotta sit tight for a few minutes until I get there, okay?”

_“Okay.”_

In Tony’s opinion it took far too long to find Peter. He landed the suit on some quiet residential street in Queens and ordered FRIDAY to scan vitals as he stepped out of the suit. Peter was curled up on the ground and shivering. He quickly rolled the kid onto his back to examine the bullet wound, eliciting a moan from Peter.

“I know it hurts, buddy, I’m sorry, but I have to see it. Soon we’ll be back at the compound and we can give you the Captain America drugs. Then it won’t hurt at all.”

Blood had soaked through Peter’s t-shirt and the light jacket he was wearing, turning the blue t-shirt a deep purple. It was everywhere. On Peter’s shirt, on the sidewalk, on Tony’s hands. God. There was so much of it that Tony couldn’t even figure out where the wound was. He would have to hope that Cho could locate it as soon as they got to the compound, or at least before Peter’s super healing kicked in.

Tony hated to leave Peter’s side for even a second, but he had to put the suit back on before he could carry Peter to the compound. Peter was light in his arms, head lolling as Tony picked him up. Tony prayed to every god he’d ever heard of that Peter would make it to the compound. How cruel it would be of fate to split them apart now after all they’d fought through.

Tony didn’t think he would ever forget the image of his kid on the operating table at three in the morning. Somehow there was even more blood than before, and yet Dr. Cho and her colleagues were as collected as ever. Tony knew that Cho was worried even if she didn’t show it. In the couple years before the Snap she had gotten to know Peter quite well while they worked on discovering the limits of his powers.

Three and a half hours later, Peter was out of surgery. Dr. Cho decided to keep him in an observation room instead of taking him back to his bedroom at the compound just in case there were any complications. She didn’t expect any, but she decided to err on the side of caution.

“He’s stable now, but I don’t want to take any chances. If you need anything or if something seems off, tell FRIDAY and she’ll let me know.” Dr. Cho said after briefly explaining Peter’s situation. “He must be extremely lucky. The bullet barely missed his spine. If he’d been shot half an inch to the left, he would have been paralyzed.”

“Thank you.” Tony replied.

“Of course,” Dr. Cho smiled. “We’re going to keep him asleep for awhile to let his super healing do its job. You should probably try to rest.”

“You know I can’t.” Tony sighed. If something bad happened while he was asleep, he would never forgive himself.

“I know.”

Moonlight was streaming through the windows when Peter opened his eyes. Everything seemed fuzzy around the edges, as though it wasn’t quite real. Through the muddled fog of his mind he recognized the med bay. What was he there for? The last thing he remembered was watching a movie with Ned in the living room.

Tony was sitting quietly in a chair next to the bed, phone in hand. But that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. He was . . . dead. _Oh. I must be dreaming._ These sorts of dreams had happened to Peter before. Sometimes is was Tony, sometimes it was Ben.

He hated them. He always woke up in the morning with a fresh wave of sadness, pillow wet with tears. It was like starting the seven stages of grief all over again.

A few moments later, maybe sensing Peter’s staring, Tony looked up at him. “Hey sleepy head, how was your nap? You were out the whole day.”

“It was fine.” Peter answered. He hated the excitement he felt at talking to Tony again, even if it was all in his mind. “I’m still tired though.” 

“Go back to bed, then, kiddo. It’s almost midnight anyway.”

“I don’t want to.” Peter said. “If I go back to sleep then I’ll wake up in real life and you won’t be there.”

“What makes you think I won’t be there?” Tony was confused. It must have been the drugs. Cho did say that he would probably be dazed when he woke up.

“Because you’re dead. You’ve been gone for over a year.”

“I’m not dead. Underoos, I’m right here. Don’t you remember?”

“I remember the first time you called me that,” Peter said idly, changing the topic. “I was so excited to go to Germany even though I was nervous. You were the first person that really believed in Spider-Man and I wanted to make you proud.”

“I am proud of you.”

"And the new suit was super cool. It probably would have been embarrassing if I’d shown up to the airport in the old one. Can you imagine if I’d actually met the Avengers dressed like that?” Peter wrinkled his nose at the thought. He was incredibly glad that hadn’t happened, although it probably didn’t make a difference anyway. There were hundreds of videos of him in that suit on YouTube.

“Yeah, it might have been a little rough, but I’m sure everyone would have loved you anyway.”

“Really?”

“Of course. We all start somewhere, right?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, pausing to stifle a yawn. Tony smiled at the memory of fourteen-year old Peter Parker walking in the door with headphones in. He was smaller back then, more innocent. How Tony wished he could go back in time and prevent Peter from ever being involved in any of this. Deep down, though, he knew that he couldn’t. Peter would have never stopped being Spider-Man. The least that Tony could do was protect him while he did it.

“Get some more rest, kiddo. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“No, you won’t,” Peter sighed. The tears didn’t have a chance to fall before he was asleep again. Tony hated to see Peter upset, but the only way to fix this was for him to sleep off the rest of the drugs. Until then, Tony would be waiting in the worlds most uncomfortable chair at his bedside. 

Next time Peter woke up the August sun was shining cheerfully through the med bay window. The chair next to his bed was empty and there was no sign of anyone else having been in the room except for Peter. Because Tony was gone. Because he was never really there in the first place.

“Oh, you’re awake.” Tony said, surprised. He had left to get a quick snack before Peter woke up. “I hadn’t expected you to be up yet, but if you’re hungry I can—hey, hey, what’s wrong?”

Peter looked up at the sound of Tony’s voice, crying. “What?”

“Do you need more pain killers? Cho said they shouldn’t have worn off but I guess you never know with your special metabolism.”

“Tony?” Peter’s voice was impossibly quiet, as if he was afraid that if he spoke any louder the world would shatter around him.

“. . . Yes?” Was the anesthesia still messing with Peter’s head? Peter was quiet for a minute as Tony set his coffee down on the night table and sit at the foot of the bed. He was careful not to jostle Peter too much for fear of hurting him.

“I’m so sorry.” He said finally, bringing a fresh wave of tears to the surface. He hated crying—he had been doing it so much lately—but he didn’t care this time.

“Me too, kiddo, me too. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Peter’s life was still upside down, and would be for a while, but he was relieved. He loved Ned and his family, he truly did, but they didn’t understand. They never could. But Tony could. He understood being a superhero, he understood being famous as a teenager, and he understood the trauma that came along with both. He could help him through it.

Maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it :)
> 
> [Support me on Ko-Fi, or commission a fic!](https://ko-fi.com/cold_nights_summer_days)


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